Ted Nugent

Ted Nugent Artistfacts

  • Dec. 13, 1948
  • Nugent never did drugs or drank heavily. He says his addiction was women.
  • By the time he was 14, his first band, The Lourds, were playing around Detroit and ended up on bills with The Beau Brummells and The Supremes. When Ted was 15, his family moved to Chicago despite his objections. There, he formed The Amboy Dukes, and when he graduated high school in 1967, he took the band back to Detroit, and in 1968 they had a hit with "Journey To The Center Of The Mind."
  • Nugent went to great lengths to avoid serving in the Army and continue his music career. When he got his draft notice at age 18, he had 30 days before his physical, which was plenty of time for him to deteriorate his condition. He immediately stopped bathing and shaving, and started eating only unhealthy foods. A week before the physical, he stopped using the bathroom and just went in his pants. Never a drug user, he snorted some lines of crystal meth. When he showed up for the physical, he was a complete mess, telling High Times in a 1977 interview, "I was a walking, talking hunk of human s--t. I made gutter swine hippies look like football players."

    The ruse worked, as Nugent passed out when they put the needle in his arm for the blood test, and proved that he was clearly not fit to serve. He was classified 4-F, not acceptable under "physical, mental, or moral standards." Nugent said that he would have been great in the Army, but he had better things to do.

    In 2006, Nugent claimed he made up the story, but military records prove he did get the 4-F classification.
  • He had a relationship with a 17-year old Hawaiian girl when he was 30. He became her legal guardian in order to comply with laws regarding relationships with minors.
  • Nugent is an avid hunter and outspoken supporter of the right to bear arms. He frequently appears on television discussions on these issues, usually making inflammatory comments that rile the other guests.
  • He had two children with his first wife, who died in a car accident after their divorce.
  • His nickname is "The Motor City Madman." The Motor City part is because he's from Detroit, and the Madman comes from his extreme behavior, especially on stage. Nugent takes pride in playing "on the edge," meaning he puts all his energy into his performances. He claims that he passed out on stage on several occasions from hyperventilating and screaming too hard.
  • A relentless live performer, by 2020 he had played about 6700 shows, spending a great deal of time wearing only a loincloth on stage. Nugent keeps track of every show and knows exactly how many he's played. His count includes every performance (which he calls "rock-outs"), from school dances to stadiums. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Bertrand - Paris, France
  • He is on the board of directors of The National Rifle Association, although he usually goes hunting with a bow and arrow. He eats everything he kills. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Tom - Trowbridge, England
  • Ted appeared as a drug dealer on the season 2 Miami Vice episode "Definitely Miami." Later that season his song "Little Miss Dangerous" was used to open a Vice episode of the same name. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Matt - Pittsburg, KS
  • The cat who played Mr. Bigglesworth in the Austin Powers movies was actually named Ted Nude-gent.
  • Nugent doesn't write down his lyrics, preferring to improvise them in the studio. "I don't have a pen and paper anywhere near my guitars," he said in a Songfacts interview. "I've never written down a chord or a lick or a lyric or melody - I just start screaming."

Comments: 23

  • Rambo Dukes from AmericaUsed to listen to him everyday as a teen. Great guitarist. That's it. To think he is the main man of the NRA? No wonder so many Americans want to disarm the public. Keep your daughter's away from him too. Google Roseanne bar tears ted nugent apart.
  • Chris from Portland,orI HATE Ted the Pedo Nugent! Why?

    1. He killed a rhino. On a 1995 outing to a game farm in South Africa, Nugent displayed his unique version of "sportsmanship." The "Predator Teditor" paid to kill a rhinoceros and then bungled the job by wounding the rhino with two arrows. "Humane hunter" that he is, Nugent refused to let game rangers finish what he'd started because he claimed the rhino was "his" to kill. The injured animal escaped to die an agonizing and slow death.

    2. He's an unethical hunter. Bobby Cairee, who leads hunts for feral pigs in Hawaii, describes one-time client Ted Nugent as "unethical" and says Nugent "shoots at anything. He just likes to kill a lot of animals.
    Illegal hunting charges
    In September 2009, Nugent embarked on a hunt near Somerset, El Dorado County, California. He was accompanied by a guide and a cameraman, filming for his Outdoor Channel show "Spirit of the Wild." The video taken appeared in an episode of the show first broadcast on February 9, 2010. California Fish and Game wardens who watched the broadcast noticed that it showed Nugent killing a very young buck which had been attracted by commercial bait. Both the killing of such a young deer and the use of bait are crimes under California state law. On August 13, 2010, he pled no contest in Yuba County to two misdemeanors: illegally baiting a deer, and failing to have a deer tag signed by a government official after a kill. He was fined USD $1,750 by the court and was banned from hunting in California until June 2012.
    In April 2012 Nugent signed a plea bargaining agreement to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for illegally taking a bear after shooting one earlier at a bait station. He was fined $10,000, banned from hunting in Alaska and on Federal land for one year, and must complete two years on federal probation.

    3. He has canned hunts and owns a canned hunt "ranch", Nugent owns a 340-acre hunting ranch near Jackson, Michigan, called Sunrize Acres.Anti-hunters claim this fenced facility offers "canned" hunts. Nugent has said, "I understand the criticism from those who say canned hunting violates the ethic of fair chase," though he still operates the facility, and refers to it as "high fence hunting". Nugent was interviewed in October 2011 by Field & Stream magazine regarding "canned" hunts.
    The band Goldfinger, known for their animal rights advocacy, wrote a song called "FTN", which is harshly critical of Nugent and his hunting tactics.

    4. He's a pedophile. In 1978, Nugent began a relationship with seventeen-year-old Hawaii native Pele Massa. Due to the age difference they could not marry so Nugent joined Massa's parents in signing documents to make himself her legal guardian, an arrangement that Spin magazine ranked in October 2000 as #63 on their list of the "100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock". More unfortunate is that these incidents have had the unintended side effect of protecting Nugent from a far bigger character issue. In fact, in the case of Nugent, we have even come to see alleged child sexual abuse as some sort of eccentricity or harmless vice. Can you imagine anyone else who had been accused of having sex with a 12-year-old, written a song about raping a 13-year-old and adopted a 17-year-old so that he could have sex with her going on to campaign alongside all the most conservative "family values" candidates?

    When Ted Nugent was 32 years old, he released the song "Jailbait." Here's a taste of the lyrics (written by him):

    Well, I don't care if you're just 13
    You look too good to be true
    I just know that you're probably clean...
    Jailbait you look fine, fine, fine...
    It's quite alright, I asked your mama
    Wait a minute, officer
    Don't put those handcuffs on me
    Put them on her, and I'll share her with you

    But we have pretty good reason, even beyond the autobiographical details, to believe that the choice of 13 in "Jailbait" is not entirely comedic exaggeration. For example, Courtney Love claims to have performed oral sex on Nugent when she was 12 and a half. When pressed, an uncharacteristically somber Love elaborated, "I didn't have breasts yet... it's sick." This would have been around the time of Nugent's 29th birthday. Would governors and congressmen hit the campaign trail with that guy? Would they send their children to his "Kamp for Kids" -- and professional snipers? What would they say about almost any other man? They wouldn't call him a creep or a redneck. They'd call him a pedophile.

    5. He's a racist.

    "I'm Beginning To Wonder If It Would Have Been Best Had The South Won The Civil War."

    Ted Nugent On Suspected Undocumented Immigrants: "I'd Like To Shoot Them Dead." From a 2008 appearance on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes:

    Civil Rights Leaders Jackson And Sharpton Speak In "Ebonic Mumbo-Jumbo." In a column for birther website WND, Nugent claimed that if a Republican president had the same drone policy as the Obama administration, "Jesse Jackson and Al Not-So-Sharpton would be lisping their ebonic mumbo-jumbo that the policy and the president are racist and bigoted." [Media Matters, 2/11/13]

    Nugent labeled Trayvon Martin, who was shot by Zimmerman, a "17-year-old dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe." In Nugent's retelling of the shooting, he said Zimmerman did what "anyone" in that situation would have done. Nugent said that "non-racist America" is pleased with the outcome of the trial, which he called a victory for "common sense, honesty and decency" in this country. According to Nugent, Martin was the only individual guilty of racism the evening he was shot.

    6. He's a draft dodge and hypocrite.

    TED NUGENT INTERVIEW....1977...have a look inside the mind of a man that proclaims himself to be a patriot, but here he tells how he got a 4F.... Nugent is a self admitted draft dodger.


    Interviewer: How did you get out of the draft?
    Nugent: I got my physical notice 30 days prior to. Well, on that day I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin' and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin' kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer-stuff I never touched-buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I'd drink the syrup, I was this side of death, Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up.

    He likes when others go to war but not him. Bawk! Bawk!

    7. He gave his own kids away and refused to pay child support. But says he cares about kids.

    Nugent has been married twice and has eight children. In the late 1960s, prior to his first marriage, Nugent fathered a boy, Ted (Mann) and a girl, whom he gave up for adoption in infancy. This did not become public knowledge until 2010. The siblings were adopted separately and had no contact with one another. The son learned the identity of his birth father in 2010 through the daughter's quest to make contact with him and their birth parents. According to a news report, Nugent over the years had discussed the existence of these children with his other children.

    In 2004 Nugent was involved in a child-support lawsuit concerning a child he had with Karen Gutowski in 1995. It was resolved, with Nugent being ordered to pay $3,500 per month in child support.
  • Dana from Woodbury, Mn, MnI may not condone the fact that he'd avoided serving in Vietnam, given his patriotism, but I do admire his anti-drug, anti-alcohol stance. Nugent has seen firsthand the destruction of drug abuse. He's seen incredible musicians fumble, drool and not be able to tune their instruments. He's had to fire many bandmates throughout the Amboy Dukes' existence due to substance abuse, particularly heroin. Some of them couldn't get from Point A to Point B. He's seen fellow musicians DIE right in front of him.
  • Caroline from Toronto, OnJimmy, London, ON can you please provide a link? And Joseph from Tulsa, OK, those adoption papers would be worth gold. If what you are saying is true, you should retrieve that document. Or obtain a copy...I am sure that's possible.
  • Stan Parker from Oak Hill, FlSorry but anyone who has anything to say positive about a guy how can only perform sexually with underage girls either secretly hates women, is seriously sexually insecure, is socially retarded, or/and an idiot. I often wondered why Ted never really appealed to me must have been his lack of any real sincerely in the music he preformed, no meat in that hunt.
  • Tim from Nashville, TnMy best friend ran the biggest nightclub in Indianapolis in the early 80's and one night Ted called up and asked if he could come to the bar with his 16 year old girlfriend. (You had to be 21 to even enter a bar then). My friend said if you are really Nugent we will set up a special room for you and your party to do whatever you want. They did...
  • Jimmy from London, OnI distinctly remember one occasion in the mid 1970's when Nugent played the old London Arena, in downtown London, Ontario Canada. As was his habit at the time, after the show he and his crew recruited a fairly substantial number of seriously under-aged girls to accompany them for "entertainment purposes" back to their motel on the strip on Wellington Road South. We're not talking 15 years old and up here folks; we're talking 15 years old and younger. When some of the parents of these girls got wind of what was going on, they called the police, who raided the rooms the band had rented. In the wee hours of the morning, after the discovery of several of the minors in various states of undress and intoxication on the premises, Mr. Nugent was given two choices; stay in town and face criminal charges for his "activities", or hit the road immediately. Needless to say, Nugent regained a little sanity and shortly thereafter his tour buses were making their way out of town on Highway 401, without female juvenile accompaniment. Keep this all in mind the next time you hear "Uncle Ted" launch one of his "shoot the pedophiles" speeches. How do I know these things? I was one of the police officers on duty that night. Any one willing to do a little digging through old newspaper files can confirm the details, the local paper "The London Free Press" covered the story at the time.
  • John from Chesapeake, VaTed was a great father to his children I can remember sitting on his lap when I was n 2nd grade reading him stories.
  • Iain from Ithaca, NyI am from a town called "Hippy Town" and normaly i would hate someone withs Ted Nugent's bleifes however he is Ted Nugent and I think he awsome.
  • Randy from Colerain Twp., Oh Nothing was wrong with Damn Yankees's first album, but their second album was a flop. Actually, Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades were a great combination. I thought their album 'Hallucination' was pretty decent. But of course that was without Ted. I had first seen Ted Nugent in concert in the mid 1980's, and then again opening for KISS in 2000, as well as with Damn Yankees in the early 90's. Unfortunately, none of the latter shows had featured Ted shooting flaming arrows at 'cut-outs' of Saddam, because the City of Cincinnati prohibits such acts involving open flames. My favorite song that I liked watching him perform was 'Stranglehold'. The bass playing of that song is just as awsome as Ted's guitar work.
  • Jonathon from Clermont, FlBasically, he's a complete and utter psychotic madman, which is why he's so awesome. Plus, he can play guitar like a god!
  • Aaron from Amelia, NeThe Nuge was a guest on the "Gee Whiz" episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. In the episode, there was a billboard advertising a pawn/gun shop, with an image of a gun. There was thought to be an image of Jesus on the butt of the gun, but it turned out it was Ted Nugent's image. The episode mainly intended to poke fun at those who claim to see the face of Jesus in everyday objects. Ted finally showed up at the Aqua Teens' house at the end of the episode, greeting them with "Hey how you guys doin' anybody without a gun and a knife and a handkerchief and a chapstick get the f*** outta here!" Ted was "dressed" in a loincloth made out of a badger and carried a bow with which he shot flaming arrows (a reference to Ted's old stage getup and his love for hunting).
  • Jared from Chippewa Lake, Mited is great i would vot that guy president he is a real michigan hero and is a hell of a guitarist and model amercan. everyone should be more like ted nugent
  • Joseph from Tulsa, OkHe definitely had/has a thing for girls, not women. My ex-wife was 14 when he got her pregnant. She put the child up for adoption. He even signed the adoption papers admitting it was his.
  • Danny from Sydney, AustraliaThis guy is such an American. He is a member of the NRA and he has his own brand of beef jerky. Damn good guitarist.
  • Lee from Phoenix, AzHis second album "Free For All" features Meatloaf on lead vocals, before "Meat" was a solo artist.
  • David from San Antonio, TxI thought this was Artist Facts baout Ted Nugent, not a place to rant about the president! Get a freaking life leftie and spred your propaganda in the proper forum. Let's stay on topic here.
  • Floyd from Syracuse, NyGUITAR ABILITY.
    OBVIOUSLY you missed TED on the KISS fairwell tour
    and the riot Ted's fingers worked on the fretboard
    of the guitar neck.
    OPEN MINDS ??
    SO, FREE SPEECH is only for celebrities on the LEFT. THE TRULY BRAINWASHED GET THEIR NEWS ONLY FROM THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA AND HAVE NOTHING TO COMPARE THEIR "ECHO CHAMBER" TO.
  • Mike from Pittsburgh, PaI realize its difficult for any of you to understand why Ted is a conservative. In your world everyone has to be a democrat or face severe derision. Thinking is certainly verboten, so is dissent or even discussion. I guess Ted has thought enough to have conviction in his values and beliefs such that he is willing to face whatever ugly epithets the left so loves to dish out. Worth considering, n'est ce pas?
  • Foo from Stuttgart, Germany
    Interesting parallels between Nugent's apparent mental decline and George W's ...

    I wonder if the people who have brain-washed W and the neo-cons, and who are apparently behind the rise in cultism and vigilante gangs in the US, used Nugent as a test subject for their behavioral control research before deploying the technology to take over our country?

    Who are these people? The American eugenics movement? Stange connections between eugenics and the Bush dynasty.

    Learn about research by the US military and CIA into behavioral control:
    http://www.datafilter.com/mc
  • Brian from New London, CtOH poor Ted. I grew up on his music, it kicked serious ass. I saw him open up for Deep Purple in 2000? The old geezers blow him off stage. He used to be a great player and a great song writer.
    I enjoy many of the things Ted enjoys, Fishing , Hunting, Women. One thing we don't share is his support for the Neocon/Neofacist who is currently residing in our White House. You know the guy who went to the Supreme Court in order to STOP the counting of votes for the presidential election. The guy who was apponted President by the Supreme Court. The guy who lied to the entire world about his reasons for invading a country. The guy who took the LARGEST surplus whe EVER HAD and turned it into the LARGEST DEFICIT we have ever had. The guy who gave the 88 BILLION dollar tax cut to the richest 1 percent of our population. The guy who took the good will of the world that was pouring out to us after the Sept 11'th attacks and pushed away allies and isolated the US. The guy that under his watch did NOTHING to combat terrorism even when the former administration warned him of our biggest threat...Osama Bin Laden. The guy that Ignored the intelligence that could have prevented the attacks of Sept 11'th. Yeah that guy, I can't stand that guy.
  • Michael J Fowler from Mesa, AzNeoconism is a real sickness, too. It can cause ya to catch a draft. If Teddi is such a right-winger he-man, why wasn't he in the 'Nam? That gy is about as sharp as a bowling ball...
  • T_scheisskopf from Northwest, NjTrue fact: Theo used to regularly say, about women:

    "Get 'em before they learn to dial more than 7-digit phone numbers"

    I guess that puberty was just a vague concept for Ol' Theo.
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